Addams Family Values (1993)

Taglines: The family just got A little stranger.

Gomez and Morticia Addams have their third child, a mustachioed boy whom they name Pubert. Wednesday and Pugsley are instantly jealous and make a few failed attempts to kill him. To try to remedy this, Gomez and Morticia hire a nanny, Debbie, to take care of Pubert. Unbeknownst to them, Debbie is a serial killer known as the Black Widow; she marries rich bachelors and murders them on their wedding night so she can collect their inheritances. She now intends to do the same to Uncle Fester to get her hands on the family’s vast fortune.

After Debbie seduces Fester, Wednesday becomes suspicious. To get rid of her, Debbie tricks Gomez and Morticia into believing Wednesday and her brother Pugsley want to go to summer camp. They are sent to Camp Chippewa, run by the overzealous Gary and Becky Granger, where they are singled out for their macabre dress and behavior. Joel, a nerdy bookworm who also does not fit in, becomes interested in Wednesday.

Debbie and Fester are soon married. On their honeymoon, she tries to kill Fester by throwing a radio in the bathtub, but he survives. Realising he won’t be as easily killed as her past husbands, Debbie decides to manipulate him with love instead and forces him to sever ties with his family; when they try to visit Fester at Debbie’s mansion, they are removed from the premises. At home, the Addams find to their alarm that Pubert has transformed into a rosy-cheeked, golden-haired baby. Grandmama diagnoses this as a result of his disrupted family life, and Gomez becomes depressed.

At camp, Wednesday is cast as Pocahontas in Gary’s saccharine Thanksgiving play. When she refuses to participate; she, Pugsley and Joel are forced to watch upbeat Disney and family films. Afterwards, Wednesday feigns cheerfulness and agrees to the play. During the performance, she stages a coup d’etat, setting the camp on fire and sending it into chaos. As she, Joel and Pugsley escape, Wednesday and Joel share a kiss.

Addams Family Values is a 1993 American supernatural dark comedy film, the sequel to the 1991 American film The Addams Family. It was written by Paul Rudnick and directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, and features many cast members from the original, including Raúl Juliá, Anjelica Huston, Christopher Lloyd, Carel Struycken, Jimmy Workman, Christina Ricci, and Christopher Hart. Included in the musical soundtrack is “Supernatural Thing” (composed by Haras Fyre) which was a chart success for Ben E. King. Compared to its predecessor, which retained something of the madcap approach of the 1960s sitcom, Addams Family Values is played more for macabre laughs.